


if I should wake before I die

by RaineyDay



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Lup Angst (The Adventure Zone), Lup Needs a Hug, Protective Lup (The Adventure Zone), Sad The Director | Lucretia, The Director | Lucretia Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29274141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaineyDay/pseuds/RaineyDay
Summary: Febuwhump day 6: InsomniaThere have been a lot more insomniacs on the Starblaster this plane.
Relationships: IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew - Relationship, The Director | Lucretia & Lup
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138502
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	if I should wake before I die

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Icon for Hire's I Think I'm Sick, which may be where chapter titles come from if this becomes a mulitchap ;) (so if you like the start of this, please say so! I'm def thinking of continuing when Febuwhump is over)

Lup couldn't sleep. It was a relatively recent problem for her. As a child, she'd learned to take every opportunity to sleep or meditate eagerly. It was rare for her and Taako to find a place that was safe enough for that, and refusing to do either always ended poorly for anybody's health.

Even when she'd been having nightmares, it rarely motivated her to give up for too long, usually just switching between mediation and sleep for a little while, depending on which experience involved the most troubling thoughts.

But tonight she tossed and turned unable to get rest of any kind.

They'd had to do this. They hadn't had any other choice- well that wasn't exactly true. They could have tried Lucretia's plan, but that wouldn't have worked much better, and it would have made it really dangerous and maybe impossible to escape to the next plane, so it was, at best, an absolute last resort situation.

That didn't make her feel any better about this plan.

Normally, she'd have qualified something like this as last resort too.

She remembered the robot world, when she had argued so strongly that they couldn't sacrifice other worlds just to stop the Hunger. She'd believed it so vehemently then. She still felt that conviction now. But how was this any better?

Sure, they weren't killing everybody. And they weren't doing anything directly, even. But that didn't change the fact that the devastation was their fault. This plane couldn't handle it forever. And so many people were suffering and dying because of their plan to stop the Hunger.

Yeah, sure, the Hunger was worse. And they had to stop it. But Lup couldn't help but wonder when she'd let her morals slip to this. They hadn't always been this. Somehow, she'd let herself become the kind of person that would do something like this.

And a part of her screamed with self-loathing. Screamed that this was never an acceptable plan. That the only reason they'd all even agreed to it in the first place was because they were so tired of running and suffering.

And they had a right to be tired. But it felt like all they'd done here was push their suffering onto other people instead.

She- she just couldn't do this anymore.

By the time that she was ready, it was the early morning- if this hour could even be called that instead of just late, late, late night. She wanted to leave before anyone could stop her or question her. This wasn't the plan, but Lup couldn't handle it anymore.

Knowing that something she made was destroying whole cities and armies and causing such devastation was more than she could bear. And talking to the others about it didn't help. They all just tried to distract her, or comfort her with statistics, or remind her of why they needed to do this. That wasn't what she needed. She didn't need to forget her problems, or remember the facts of the situation. She was a woman of both thought and action, and she'd spent enough time thinking. She needed to _do something._

The hallways were dark, but that wasn't a problem with her darkvision. If anything, it was an advantage, given that not all of her family members had it. What was a problem was that she was tired, emotionally and physically, and her body kept telling her that it was time to rest, even though it wouldn't let her get any.

There was no real danger, anyway. No one would be suspicious of her wandering the ship. She was planning to leave a note, but she hadn't gotten to it yet, so there was no reason for anyone to suspect anything.

She shook her head, forcing the paranoia to leave her mind. She was perfectly safe. It just felt so strange to be hiding something from her family. It was throwing her off.

Her mind was too busy and tired for her to notice the signs that someone was about to turn a corner in front of her, and she walked right into Lucretia before she could stop herself. The two women nearly went down in a pile of limbs, but just barely caught themselves.

"Lup?" Lucretia asked, sounding uncertain. Lup wasn't sure if that uncertainty came from curiosity about what she was doing up at this time, or if it was just because human eyes sucked at seeing in the dark, and Lucretia was just genuinely unsure who exactly she'd bumped into. She decided to answer as if it were the latter, since she didn't want to answer the former anyway.

"Yeah, it's me, Creesh. Sorry 'bout that."

"Don't be. It's as much my fault as it is yours," Lucretia responded, waving one hand as if to dismiss the apology.

"What are you doing up, babe? You should get some sleep," Lup said, her concern for Lucretia and her desire to get Lucretia to leave so she could go about her business unseen out-weighing the fear that the question would prompt Lucretia to ask the same.

"I couldn't," Lucretia said, softly.

"You have to sleep, Lucy," Lup said, voice softening. "I know it's hard sometimes- but it's so bad for you when you don't."

Lup had learned the side of effects of going without sleep or meditation decades before she even joined this mission, and yet they still haunted her. And for humans, who couldn't get away with using meditation to make up for it, it was even worse. Lup couldn't help but be worried for her human crewmates when they weren't getting enough of it.

"Can I make you something?" Lup offered, turning toward the kitchen. "Grilled cheese?"

It was Lucretia's favorite comfort food, she knew, and she rarely turned it down, so Lup was rather surprised when Lucretia shook her head vehemently at the offer.

"No!" She said, louder than she usually would at night, for fear of waking people up.

Lup leaned back a little, surprised at the outburst.

"Okay! I'm not gonna force feed you," she responded, turning it into a joke, even though the thought had definitely occurred to her before, on bad cycles when Lucretia would get so depressed that she stopped eating and started to get too thin for anybody's comfort. It had always been especially upsetting to her and Taako though, even if they didn't admit it. Even before they'd started to admit that their crew was family.

"Sorry," Lucretia said, voice gone quiet again. "I know you were just trying to help. But it's frustrating. Everyone wants to help but nobody is _doing_ anything. It's just all distractions and rationalizations and shitty goofs around here recently."

Lup slumped in on herself a little at that. She understood what Lucretia meant all too well.

"Gods, I know. It's unbearable," she admitted.

Lucretia's expression changed then, went soft, and she reached out and touched Lup's arm softly.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Lup meant to assure her that she was. That she could handle this. The crew knew how badly she was doing with this plan, of course, but saying anything risked her own plan. But the quiet of the night and her own tiredness had her shaking her head 'no' instead.

Lucretia hesitated, clearly unsure of what she could do, before she wrapped Lup up in a tight hug. Lup squeezed back, trying to keep herself from crying, because once she started she wasn't going to stop, and she might spill the details on her plans and end up ruining them.

Lucretia was murmuring comfort to her, but Lup heard her let out a sob of her own, and that was what finally broke her.

They just held onto each other for a long time, crying but less miserable for the sake of being in each other's company.

Lup pulled back eventually, but not all the way. She took Lucretia's hand in her to have something to hold on.

"Come on," Lup said, tugging Lucretia toward the kitchen. "It's not gonna fix anything, but food's not gonna hurt."

Lucretia didn't let go as Lup pulled her along, and she didn't protest anymore.

It wasn't easy to cook with only one hand free, but Lup has always been very good at cooking under less than ideal circumstances. And Lucretia kept handing her stuff when she needed it, often without even needing instruction from Lup. And grilled cheese was basic enough that they made it work.

They sat down at the table, and they kept not letting go, nibbling on their sandwiches in comfortable silence.

"It's not just that I'm mad you wouldn't let me do my plan, you know," Lucretia said, quietly. "I'm not that arrogant. I'm just so afraid of what this plan is doing to us. I always have been."

"Yeah. I think we all know that. We just don't want to talk about it, because we haven't been able to find a single plan that won't hurt people. Yours isn't perfect either, you know?" Lup said, automatically tensing up a little at the topic, given the number of arguments it had already caused.

"I know," Lucretia whispered. Her voice got even softer as she said the next part. "But it wouldn't hurt you. Not like this. It wouldn't put our family in danger like this one does. That's such a selfish way to look at it, I know, but if we're going to have to hurt people either way- I wanted to make sure that we never hurt each other."

Lup was left speechless by the words. Lucretia had never told them that in those words before, and she felt a wave of affection and sadness for her friend.

"Oh babe. Baaaabe. Fuck, I had no idea," she said, and squeezed Lucretia's hand in hers.

"Somebody figured out a way to use the Bulwark Staff as a weapon," Lucretia blurted, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. "They- they trap people inside of the shield and bomb them or poison them or bottleneck attack them. I _never_ thought-"

"Lucy," Lup said, choked up on her own emotions. She understood that pain. So well. "Why didn't you tell anybody? We understand- obviously. We want to help you."

"How was I supposed to say that? Even with- this- my device has a smaller death count than any of yours," Lucretia said, and Lup flinched involuntarily. "I didn't want to be- you know, like the person with a sore leg who tells somebody with chronic pain that they _know what you're going through_ when they don't have a clue."

"That's not what telling us that stuff would be," Lup said, voice firm and unwavering. "That would just be- venting to your family. That's what we're here for. Doesn't matter that it's not the same."

Lucretia had started crying too hard to eat her sandwich anymore, so Lup went over to her and squeezed onto the chair she was sitting on, wrapping her arms around her again. And pushing the sandwich away because tear soggy grilled cheese was _not_ on the menu in her kitchen.

Lucretia turned her head to cry into Lup's chest, her body automatically adjusting to Lup's presence on the chair to avoid overbalancing. They were family, after all, comfortable in each other's space even now, when they'd spent weeks circling each other like skittish cats afraid of startling each other.

Lup figured her plans could be put off a little longer. Right now, her family needed her. The world could wait.


End file.
